Christmas Greetings, Dec 13, 2012

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Gone Home - Antoon (Tony) Houben

                               Antoon (Tony) Houben
                      March 26, 1928 – August 10, 2012

It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden passing of our father, Antoon Houben, on August 10, 2012.  He was born on March 26, 1928 in Heerlen, Limburg, the Netherlands. He was the second youngest of 12 children.
He is predeceased by his wife Ruth; both his parents; his brothers Jan, Scra, Sjef, Piet, Harry, and Leo; and sisters Mia and Dienje.  He is survived by his sisters Lieske, Nelly and Jo; his sons, Antoon, Wim and Robert (Loretta); and his daughters Merina Matthew (Fred), Sylvia Boyd (Gary), and Margaret Houben.  He is also survived by his six grandchildren, Leah May Lynn (Kevin), Tammy Lynn Leavitt (Ethan), Donna Lee Pidgeon (Daniel), Jared Monds (Laura), Matthew John Robert Houben, and Ruth Elizabeth Akefa Azu (Sam); as well as nine great grand children.
Tony grew up in Heerlen, Limburg, the Netherlands where he worked at the family bicycle and electric shop.  He was an active scout before, during and after the war, and indeed, was involved in scouting right up to the end, being an active member of the 28th Baden-Powell Guild in Kamloops.  As a scouter he received several awards, including the medal of merit and the bar to the medal of merit.
He met his wife Ruth, square-dancing at the Hexeberg. They were married on May 17, 1950 and emigrated to Canada in 1952, coming straight over to B.C. where they remained.  They celebrated their 50th Anniversary in 2000, with all their children around them.  The following year Ruth passed away.
Tony worked as a millwright for many years before he retired, working at a variety of mills, from Alcan in Kitimat, to Fraser Mills in New Westminster.  He was a hard worker, but still found time to do things with his children.  He enjoyed going for long drives with all of us packed in the car, and would often find the most unlikely of roads to explore.
He moved to Barriere in 1994 with his wife, Ruth and son, Wim.  He loved it here in Barriere and enjoyed the small town life, making many friends.
Tony had a great sense of humour and liked teasing and joking with those he met.  Often, when asked how he felt, he would respond “very carefully, I don’t want to get my face slapped”, or if asked how he was doing, he’d reply with a grin: “without”.    He will be greatly missed by all his family.
The service will be on August 25, at St. George’s Catholic Church, 5024 Barriere Town Road, at 11 a.m.  The reception will be shortly after the service, at 1 p.m. at the Barriere Senior’s Centre, 4433 Barriere Town Road.
Those wishing to make a donation are asked to donate to Scouts Canada or any scout group in their area.

Thank you to North Thompson Funeral Services for handling the arrangements.

Coffee HAG

Aha! - found out what Coffee HAG is - wikipeadia had it -
Café HAG is a worldwide brand of decaffeinated coffee owned by U.S. multinational Kraft Foods.
The brand originated in Bremen in Germany in 1906 and took its name from the company title Kaffee Handels-Aktien-Gesellschaft, or Kaffee HAG for short.

Ship's final menu for June 21, 1952

This is the last one, the "farewell" dinner menu. There are 4 pictures, the front and back cover first, and then the inside two pages - it was too big to scan the outsides and insides as one shot each.

Ship's menu from June 20, 1952

Here is the breakfast menu for the 20th.

And the lunch menu for the same day.  No dinner menu though.

Ship's menu from June 19, 1952

Here's the breakfast menu for June 19, 1952... there aren't any saved from the 18th.

And the lunch menu.

And the dinner menu, both outside and inside.

Ship's menu for June 16 and 17, 1952

Here is the breakfast menu from June 16, 1952.  These are so cool... I wonder what "coffee hag" is - lol - it sounds interesting!

This is the lunch menu.

And here are the outside and inside of the dinner menu for June 17.

Ship's menu from June 15, 1952

This is the lunch menu from June 15, 1952.

And the next two are the outside cover and inside of the dinner menu for the same day.

Ship menu's from June 14, 1952

In 1952, my parents emigrated to Canada, leaving from Rotterdam on the Ryndam, bound for New York, where they took the train into Canada and to British Columbia on the west coast.  Mom, even back then, collected stuff - and here are the menu cards she saved from the ship.  I'll post each day's worth individually.

This one is from lunch on June 14, 1952.

Happy New Year!

Yay!  A whole brand new year to play with!
First off, I treated myself to a brand new camera (a fuji) for Christmas - here are the first few pictures I took with it:

Christmas dinner - turkey, brussel sprouts, yams, turnip, and mushrooms (after starting with turkey soup), and a bowl of jicama root and mini sugar mandarins - yum!  The yams and mushrooms were baked with the turkey, the sprouts and the turnip were steamed and then buttered (and a little nutmeg on the turnip).  The turkey was baked, covered in bacon.
We tried the jicama root, just to see what it was like - not bad!  Sort of like a really crunchy pear.